Tag Archive | "most romantic town"

Posted on 18 February 2014

A couple gets married on Windmill Beach in Sag Harbor. Michael Heller photo.

By Tessa Raebeck

Those who have enjoyed a glass of wine while watching the snow fall out the windows of the American Hotel, spent an autumn afternoon perusing the trinkets in local shops, or watched the yachts come in during a summer stroll down the wharf know that Sag Harbor is nothing short of romantic.

What local lovers have always known is now official; Sag Harbor has been named the fourth “Most Romantic Town” in America by Travel & Leisure.

“This branch of the Hamptons has long inspired good name-dropping: it attracts plenty of celebs and, more than a hundred years ago, even merited a mention in Moby Dick. On Saturdays from May through October, you can scan the crowds for familiar faces and pick up a local wine and other picnic provisions at the Sag Harbor Farmers’ Market in front of the Breakwater Yacht Club.”

Travel & Leisure compiled the list of America’s most romantic towns using reader nominations and subsequent rankings of the selected towns in 55 distinct categories. The top 25 were then determined by a calculation using the most “lover-friendly” of those categories: bakeries, brunch spots, farmers’ markets, gay friendliness, “idyllic, picnic-friendly parks,” romantic hotels and “wine scenes.”

Montauk also made the list; the “more relaxed version of the Hamptons and the perfect spot for long-walks-on-the-beach-type romance” came in at number 25.

Sag Harbor is enjoying national recognition as a travel destination for the second year in a row. In 2013, Coastal Living ranked the village, also in fourth place, as one of America’s “Happiest Seaside Towns,” or “the best places to live on the coast.”